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Saul Young / AP
Evidence tape covers an electrical meter near two houseboats at German Creek Marina on Cherokee Lake in Bean Station, Tenn., on Wednesday. One boy died and another was critically injured after an apparent electrocution.
Updated at 8:40 p.m.: Three children died -- two in Missouri and one in Tennessee -- after they were shocked by electricity while swimming in lakes, authorities said.
In another tragedy, three children drowned in the Iowa River, police said.
In Missouri, 13-year-old Alexandra Anderson and her 8-year-old brother Brayden of Ashland were killed when they were shocked around noon by an unknown source of electricity while swimming near a private dock in the Lake of the Ozarks, KSHB-TV reported.
Several adults got the siblings out of the water but couldn't revive them. They were pronounced dead at Lake Regional Hospital in Osage Beach.
The Missouri Highway Patrol said investigators were looking at electricity powering lights and a pump that supplies water to a slide children use at the dock, but they had not determined what had caused the electrocution by Wednesday evening.
The accident in Tennessee happened near the German Creek Marina on Cherokee Lake in the town of Bean Station. Two boys were swimming in the lake between two house boats when they were shocked, the Grainger County Sheriff's Office said, WBIR-TV reported.
Saul Young / AP
The scene at German Creek Marina on Cherokee Lake in Bean Station, Tenn., on Wednesday after a boy died and another was critically injured in an apparent electrocution.
Both boys, whose names were not released, were originally reported dead, but Sheriff Scott Layel said one child was revived on a medical helicopter flight.
The sheriff's department said several other people were taken to the hospital in Morristown to be checked out because bystanders trying to rescue the boys were shocked as well.
The marina was evacuated as a precaution. Authorities were searching for the source of the electric current.
Layel told the Knoxville News Sentinel that wiring in the bottom of one of the houseboats might have caused the shocks.
It was uncertain whether the boys were shocked in the water or when they touched the metal ladder of one of the houseboats, Layel said.
A visitor from California, Paul Worley, told WBIR that he was temporarily paralyzed when he jumped into the water to try to rescue one of the victims.
"We heard the screaming, and we ran down there and saw a kid and a lady in the water," Worley told WBIR from his hospital bed in Morristown.
He said he jumped into the water not knowing it was electrified.
"I went down about 3-4 feet, and I figured 'I'm dead' because by then, I knew what it was."
He said despite the shock he tried to get one of the children to a nearby jet ski.
"I know when they cut off the electricity from the boat. I didn't feel the electricity anymore," he said.
WBIR said Worley was expected to be released from Lakeway Regional Hospital Thursday.
Drowning claims three other children
In another incident, the bodies of three children were found in the Iowa River Wednesday night near Marshalltown, NBC station WHO of Des Moines reported.
The station said the children were reported missing around 6:30 p.m. and the bodies of two girls and one boy, ages 6-10, were found just before 9 p.m. Police say the children were swimming in the river.
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I cant even begin to imagine what those parents and those that tried to help are going through right now. My heart breaks for the parents and family of those kids. R.I.P.
poor kids, what an awful tragedy!
Improperly grounded equipment means that whoever touches it is subject to becoming a shorter path for the electricity to complete its circuit. Be it a high voltage electric tower, a children's metal slide into a pool, a handrail on the pool, a metal golf ball cup? Improperly grounded equipment discriminates against no one! Got that? NO ONE! You could be green with red poka-dots. Young, old.. A horse, dog anything with a beating heart.. (Just that kids seem to get into everything? In these cases with wet sneaks, clogs or no shoes at all). And there are all kinds of reasons for grounds failing.. Could be corrosion, age, accidents or perhaps, just perhaps it wasn't grounded correctly from the beginning? That's why public (and private) facilities need timely electrical checks of their equipment to make sure no one is placed at risk. Sometime in the future we might all see these certificates clearly posted as we enter (like we see in elevators today).
We're still young in this age of electricity.. It's only been in use for a little more than the past 100 years.. But lately we are making more, and using more than ever. I would venture a guess that we've lost thousands of people because of improperly grounded equipment. But we can prevent such tragedy. And it's more important now to know that together we can do something to prevent this from happening to anyone again.. First, we all need to understand what is happening. Then all of us can willingly work to insist on legislation to prevent such tragedy from being so common.
Kudos to the guy who had the courage to jump in the lake.
The bottom feeders are swimming to these families as we speak....
This is a parents worst nightmare. May God comfort these families.
First, sad day for the families involved. Quick electric story,I was helping wire a trailer park shower room in Big Pine Key FL.years ago Working with a certified electrician,we got the building wired,but wanted to test the system before hooking on to the power grid,used extension cords from managers house to the new panel. We got shocked when we touched the outlets, seems one of the extension cords was only two wire,no ground circuit,so system was not properly grounded,so we were getting shocked.I also saw boats that were not properly wired,they could hook up to shore power, but a person in the water near the boat would get shocked when they touched the boat.Again sad day for the families,maybe a proper investigation will show the real cause.If it turns out some one was trying to cheap out then sue his damn socks off
@ Woodpecker
It wasn't the fact you had no ground but most likely the fact that you wired this extention cord to a service that had the ground and neutral bonded together as you would for a service, the voltage drop of the neutral in the extention cord would also be on the bath house grounding and is one of the reasons the codes require us to keep neutrals and grounding conductors seperate after the main service, see my post below as this is one of the sources of stray voltage and even with a code compliant install can be present, the only way we can get this type of stray voltage eleminated is to have 4-wire service drops on any run over 150' but the utilities will fight to the death to keep that from happening unless we raise our voices.
Wow that was extremely shocking news.....
Prehistoric electric eel? Give Sci-Fi enough time it will soon be a moviel
In my 37 year career electrician and understanding of how grounding and bonding work, I have tracked down many sources of stray voltage and yes they can come from many sources, but the important thing to know is that the source is close to the area of the measured stray voltage, across America we have dealt with stray voltage problems at farms and pools and yes even at lakes and other places where a person might swim, but in most cases we find code violations that are the root cause, but there are some cases that you can have a code compliant installation and still have stray voltage.
One point that is a myth in the real world: Ground rods and or many types of grounding electrodes do little to nothing to stop stray voltage, if you have a 120 volt source connected to a 8' rod in Earth and this rod has a 25 ohm impedance you will only have 4.8 amps of current flow, this will not offer any safety as it would not even open a 5 amp breaker, and the Earth shells around the rod will have a voltage drop of 75% at 3' from the rod so if you were standing 3' from the rod and touched the rod bare footed your body would receive a 90 volt shock, and that is enough to kill, so a ground rod does not provide even protection from touch potential.
One such case in if the length of the service drop or laterals running from the transformer to the service point is long then the voltage drop on the neutral will be imposed on everything that is bonded to this neutral after the service point and can be totally code compliant install.
With the above said, here is my view on this tragedy as below
I think this statement from a man who had jumped into the water can give us a clue as to "where" the current was coming from, but not the "why"
"I know when they cut off the electricity from the boat. I didn't feel the electricity anymore," he said.
In speculation ( which is all we can do from our computers) one could guess at lost neutral, EGC's and neutrals not separated, voltage drop on the service neutral feeding the service to the boats, and many other reasons, obviously there was a voltage on this boat that was disconnected when they shut off the service, in looking at the photo we see conductive metal pontoons, and we can assume this was the path, but what ahead of this point is anyones guess without more info.
Lets just hope this gets investigated to the point that laws or enforcement of code is straighten in and around where boats are connected to shore power, tragedies like this should be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law
Having worked for and around marinas for many years, this is sadly a common tragedy too often repeated. There is no practical solution to guarantee no one will be in danger of electrocution. Sure, marinas can be held responsible for the condition of their facilities, and they should be. I see dangerous wiring conditions in even the best marinas, and the older ones can be horrible. Many marinas and private docks are outside of city limits and never even get a new construction inspection, let alone a re inspection after being moved or repaired or damaged by storms. Ground Fault Interrupters are helpful, but nuisance tripping is a huge problem around water, so most places won't even try to use them.
All that said... The real problem lies with the public who use the facilities. The marinas can't possibly know where the power goes once the shore power is connected to a boat. If the boat is improperly wired, the cord is damaged and hanging in the water, the boat leaves the dock without disconnecting the power, etc., Anything is possible.
The best prevention is education. Marias and private dock owners should make sure people are aware of the danger and not allow swimming around docks with electricity.
Sadly I see very few "NO SWIMMING" signs around docks and I've never seen any mention of "ELECTROCUTION HAZARD" posted. Almost like they don't want to admit the problem exists at their facilities. But if they have power to the docks, it does, no mater how safe they try to male it!
I am an electrical techie, but dont know much about marina wiring. What about GFCI protection?
GfCI's do work if installed correctly and the fault causing the voltage in the water is on the load side of the device, but as I said above they do have there limits, and any voltage on the grounding ahead of the GFCI like a voltage drop on the service will just go right past the GFCI as it is not designed to detect this condition or can it, it only takes 2 volts to prevent a person from being able to get out of the water, and a 10 volt drop on the service neutral can produce a 10 ma across a body in water, this anc render the person unconscious and unable to save them selves, it also is enough to paralyze them, we do not think of 1 or 2 volts as dangerous on land, but when a body in in the water it can be devastating as your mussels can contract and keep you from getting to safety, I deal with allot of stray voltage around pools, that many times comes from a simple voltage drop in the service neutral in a code compliant wiring installation, it is hard to get a utility to correct this until the owners threaten to sue, it is sad we have to resort to this to have a safe pool much less when it happens at a lake and the children pay the price of our greed of not wanting to pay the price to get it fixed or pay a person to regularly check the electrical, when my Dad had his marina in Florida any new boats would have to go through a complete electrical inspection before they were allowed to use any shore power or even there own inboard supply if they wanted to rent a slip, this needs to implemented world wide and we would see a reduction in these kinds of tragedies.
Lets get some laws on this and lets quit making our children pay the price of our laziness of not wanting to make sure our electric around where they swim safe!!!
A GFCI {Ground Fault Circuit Interuptor} is a Device That Measures the Difference in Current between the Hot Conductor and the Nuetral Conductor. A properly designed and installed GFCI would have tripped at a difference less than 6 Millamps {.006 amps}. There would have been no deaths with this device installed. NOW- The problem, As a Master Electrician in THE SOUTH, I have found numerous Breaker Panels with the GFIC removed and a standard breaker in their place, because the GFCI would not stay on, Something wrong with the breaker, NO FOOL, something wrong with the wiring and the wiring needs to be repaired. If a GFCI trips and keeps tripping, CALL an electrician, do not just change the breakers to a non GFCI and do not change the Receptacle to a Standard plug. You can and probably kill someone if you do. 32 Millamps {.032 amps} can cause the heart to defibrilate {two signal and a heartbeat race}to 180 beats per minute or more. The systems cannot deliver the blood to the brain and the brain dies in 3 to 5 minutes unless de-fibrilation is accomplished. CPR will not help much. DEFIBRILATOR
CHICAGO, Dec. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL) has adopted a resolution urging state utility regulators to address the dangers of contact voltage, a hidden danger that has caused deaths and serious injuries in cities across the US in recent years.
Sponsored by Rep. Alan Williams (D-FL), the resolution, entitled "Protecting the Public from Serious Injury & Death Caused by Contact Voltage in Our Communities," calls on "all state legislators to ensure that their respective regulators, who are not already doing so, are proactively addressing these dangers."
"This is another important step in our mission to preserve our daughter's legacy," said former NFL defensive lineman Anthony "Bubba" Green, whose 14-year-old daughter, Deanna, was killed by contact voltage in an incident in Baltimore, MD, in 2006. "My wife, Nancy, and I are committed to seeing that Deanna's footprints are firmly embedded across the country."
Deanna Green was killed while warming up for a church softball game. Contact voltage had caused a fence adjacent to her team's bench to become electrified. Deanna was an aspiring lyric opera singer and wanted to commit her life to helping others.
Following the efforts of Mr. and Mrs. Green, the State of Maryland recently passed the "Deanna Camille Green Rule for Contact Voltage Detection and Repair," which requires that annual testing be performed in Maryland cities to detect contact voltage. The Maryland regulation was modeled after regulations in the State of New York where a young woman was killed by contact voltage in 2004. The NBCSL resolution notes that "the methodology used in the State of New York has substantially improved public safety."
"Every day I work with children, teaching them to set goals, live their dreams and be accountable for their actions," Mr. Green added. "This resolution is another step in ensuring states are proactively addressing public safety hazards, and making communities safer. There would be no better way to remember our daughter."
(For more information please visit Deanna's Lyric Foundation at www.deannaslyric.org)
Contact: Anthony Green (443) 985-9039
SOURCE Deanna’s Lyric Foundation
HRDawg
wrote---------"Thanks for the knowledge, JS in SD.
I wasn't aware of this. Now I know."
I was also not aware of the danger OF STRAY electricity common around Marinas
SO THANKS from me also -------JS IN SD
Being an Electrician for twenty five years, I can tell you every person I meet is an electrician. This dock was wired by the owner, who has no clue how to wire one. If a contractor had done this, sure, they would be in trouble unless the original installation had been damaged somehow and not repaired by the owner.
i know this post is not about this story but a few years back i seen a story about boating were kids and adult were dieing or drowning behind the boats they were using and as it was found out it was from the carbon monoxide from the engine from the back of the boat that was killing these people , just want to share
This was so sad. I live an hour from Cherokee lake and have spent a lot of family time there. I found out about the drownings hours after they happened. In a small community news travels very fast.
The problem is with those twist-lok connectors that boats use. They are easily mis-wired due confusion of the terminals. Even professional electricians have to consult the (NEC) book. An average boat-owner probably wouldn't get it right. This puts the HOT on the Ground. It might work due to the resistance of the water going back to earth ground. But this puts a differential voltage thru the water.
I hope they have an investigator who KNOWS what he is doing. (So many gov't officials are downright idiots.)
My guess is the boat they were diving from was wired incorrectly by the boat owner who didn't have a clue as to what he was doing.